Do you know where this is?

This block full of businesses looks a lot like any other in the city, but unlike many others, something of the uniqueness of one of these buildings remains and hasn't fallen victim to urban renewal.

The two buildings in the center were, in this 1963 photo, active centers of commerce.

The smaller was occupied by Doresk Refrigeration and Appliance store; the larger, by Kerns Casket Co.

Kerns was among the many businesses in this bustling city that was bravely begun by an entrepreneur during the Great Depression. Worcester businessman Thomas J. Kern opened the business in 1932.

Kerns was not starting from scratch without a good idea of where his business was coming from, however. He'd been an employee of the Sessions family undertaking business, the family into which he had married. Sessions funerals were likely a good, reliable market for Kerns caskets, and, after all, death and the need for caskets was not subject to economic forces — though the type of casket likely would be.

Kerns ran the business until his death in 1952, when his wife, Marjorie, took over. She ran the business until 1964, when it was sold to the Sessions undertaking business.

The Sessions family business had its day of fame in 1912, when it was mentioned in news reports regarding the sinking of the Titanic.

Mr. Waldo E. Sessions, of George Sessions & Sons Co. — Worcester undertakers — made the trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to retrieve the body of another prominent Worcester businessman, Mr. Walter Porter, of the Samuel Porter Last Manufacturing Co.

Mr. Porter had been away on a business trip to Europe — his first — but did not survive the sinking of the Titanic. His body was brought home by Mr. Sessions to be buried in Hope Cemetery — perhaps in a Kerns Casket.

Hint: This street bears the name of a once-disgraced, yet prominent, Worcester family.

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